Learning Beyond School

Imagine a world where school is the only place to learn. You can't learn in your home. You gain no new skills, applicable knowledge or information at work. Church is a place for "fellowship" but teaching is nonexistent. You only learn in school.

Want to be able to do something more? Take a class. You have no other option. Even the internet is devoid of helpful suggestions or personal insights.

School: The only form of education.

Sounds like a great dystopian premise to me.

Thankfully, that is not reality. In the years since we left school we have learned a great deal. Our abilities have developed. Our knowledge base has increased. Our interests have been able to flourish. We may have taken a class here and there. But our learning has occurred elsewhere, for the most part. We have learned at home, at work, at church, with friends and even those who aren't so friendly.

Much of what we learn and use is outside of the classroom.

Film school was that way. The main point was not gleaning knowledge from my professor's presentations. Rather, we learned by doing. We made movies and learned along the way. Our professor's were the slave drivers and mentors. They taught us things, for sure, but most of what we learned was well beyond the classroom.

School is at its best when it is the catalyst for our learning.

That is why homeschooling is such a fantastic option. Home education teaches us how to learn. Learning becomes a natural part of our daily lives. And in so doing we ensure that we never fall into the trap of thinking that "school" is the only place to learn.

My older children learned classics such as the "Scooby Dooby Doo pooped in a shoe and Shaggy thought it was candy" song in public school. Imagine what church would be like if all the hymns and sermons we heard in church were inspired by public school...

We would get theology like, "Girls go to college to get more knowledge. Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider."

Welllll... It would make the sermons more interesting for about a week, but I can't say I'd be tithing. It wouldn't be like I'd be learning anything anyway in this hypothetical world.